Brynn's Blessing

We had a special day here on Sunday. Brynn was blessed at church and we had family in town to be with us. A baby blessing in the LDS faith is similar to a christening, but it is performed by a lay member who has the Priesthood. It was such an amazing experience for me to be able to watch my daughter be blessed by her dad, and I know it was an amazing experience for Greg to be able to do it. 

Blessing her is something we've been looking forward to doing for years. When Austin and Daniel were born they both received blessings. They were very simple and very powerful. It was a window into who they were. I felt the same way at Brynn's blessing. She has her whole life ahead of her. It was a reminder to me that the whole journey of bringing her to our family was never just about "us," if you know what I mean. She has her own life, her own talents, her own strengths. She's going to have her own struggles and make her own choices. She's so little now, but there are so many things she is going to experience. She's not just my beautiful daughter--she is her own person. Maybe that sounds simple and silly, but having this more full picture of who she is just makes me fall in love with her even more. 

I was pretty proud of her blessing dress. I knew she would be a girl the moment we found out we were expecting, and I really wanted to be able to make her a blessing dress. I practiced sewing the whole time I was pregnant so the dress would turn out nice. It was a little big for her, but Grandma Zollinger helped us fix that with a ribbon around her waist. I thought she looked so beautiful and I'm so glad I started the tradition of making my kids' blessing clothes! Hopefully I can keep it up. 

Isn't she lovely though? 

Greg's parents and his brother Morgan's family came into town. It was so fun to have them here! We took Brynn out on some adventures this weekend and just had a blast. 

I'm so happy she is in our family. 

We took some cousin pictures. James was not having any of it! But they still turned out pretty adorable. 

Motherhood is funny. I've never been so consistently exhausted in my life and sometimes I have no freakin' clue what I'm doing. But she is beautiful and life is so good. 

4 Weeks Old!

Hey, we made it! Brynn is a month old (almost...pretty much).

This past week we had a great adventure and went to church for the first time. Brynn was very cute in her Sunday best, if I do say so myself.

 Church is exhausting!

There was also a time this past week when I was trying to take a really photogenic picture of Brynn to post on an online baby shower page. Most of the time she's very cooperative, but sometimes Miss Brynn just doesn't feel like posing all pretty and stuff. These are samples of the pictures I kept getting: 

It was pretty hilarious. Just for the record, I still think she's pretty stinkin' adorable in all these "real life" shots. 

We're still working on the sleeping/eating/napping thing, but life is pretty good around here. Mom finds something new to worry about every day, but since worrying is BY FAR my bestest talent, I guess I didn't expect anything else. And after a few weeks where Brynn lost a ton of birth weight and really struggled to start gaining it back, she now is packing on the pounds pretty good! For serious though, after a million weight check pediatrician visits, she put on half a pound in 4 days. FOUR. DAYS. 

Good job Baby Brynn! Here's to another 4 weeks!